


Shelter

by Rivulet027



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Knitting, Past Torture, Recovery, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/pseuds/Rivulet027
Summary: Ronon isn't sure he can settle after having been a runner, after finding out Sateda is lost, but Atlantis offers him a home and hope.





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gutterandthestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutterandthestars/gifts).



> A/N: Thank you to midnightclarity for the beta.

Ronon knows how to be still, except he knows how to be still so that the Wraith won’t know he’s there. For the better part of seven years he’s done his best to avoid people and kill Wraith. He’s not sure he has it in him to be a part of a city. He’s not sure he has it in him to belong to a place and a people again. What if he loses them too? What if they’re made to pay a price for helping him? Could he forgive himself? Has he been a runner for so long that he doesn’t know how to stop once it’s over?

He wants it to be over, but he’s not sure he’s ready to trust that thought. And yet John is a reassuring presence. John reminds him that Atlantis is secure when he needs to hear it and then is impressed with Ronon’s skills as a marksman and fighter. He never lets Ronon feel as if he’s less for needing to know he’s safe. Teyla is always on hand to help work off nervous energy, she tends to win when they spar and he always needs to be on guard for her moves. It helps him sleep after. Ronon isn’t sure Rodney would appreciate it, but he finds the scientist’s antics amusing.

“What if I can’t expand myself beyond the three of you?” he asks Teyla at their next sparing session.

“You’re already friends with Evan,” she points out.

“We run together and spar,” Ronon shrugs. Is that a friendship?

She regards him for a moment, then nods. “You should talk with Kate.”

“Kate? Is that the botanist that Rodney…” he trails off at the smile on Teyla’s face.

“That’s Katie Brown. I think that you might not want to run if Kate Heightmeyer lets you know what she does here.”

“Don’t people talk to her?”

“It’s more than talking,” Teyla reassures and he can tell she’s about to pitch him whatever it is that Heightmeyer does.

He stops her with a joke, “Heightmeyer. It’s less confusing and these people use last names. Let her tell me and I’ll listen. And I might have questions you don’t have the answers to.”

Teyla smiles at his teasing tone and agrees.

It’s more than talking Heightmeyer explains the next day when she sits herself across from him at the midday meal. She says words like complex trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, Ronon isn’t sure he likes that there are words for what he went through or how he might handle the situation after, but agreeing to meet with Heightmeyer makes him finally feel like he might be living in the after. Therapy is exhausting, but it helps to salve the itchy need to keep running that was growing under his skin.

After Heightmeyer joins him, others start too. The Marines like to bracket him, then take time to teach him their pop cultural references and inside jokes. Lorne paints and he’ll share supplies. Ronon decides Teyla is right, he’s made a friend outside their small group. Zelenka takes to teaching him chess. Reed teaches him checkers. He tells them both about a game he used to play in his youth and they decide he needs marbles. Marbles isn’t exactly the game he remembers, but it’s so close that he feels like a small boy again when he teaches them how it was done on Sateda. 

Then he sees Kusanagi making herself clothes with two sticks. He wants to ask. A skill of making clothes that doesn’t look like it’d require many supplies is always useful. It’s soothing to watch and seems to keep her hands busy as she chats with Zelenka. Then he sees Parrish and Brown doing the same thing after their meal as they discuss their latest find. He asks Teyla about it.

“Knitting,” she tells him. “They’re called knitting needles and Rodney can teach you.”

“McKay?”

He’s becoming more comfortable with the brash man. He knows to not let McKay eat any local food until one of them have determined it’s safe, since citrus could kill him. He’s also learned, from Zelenka, to have extra snacks on hand in case Rodney gets hungry. He’s grateful that Zelenka was willing to take the time to explain that hypoglycemia is a medical condition and Rodney really does need to eat when he was feeling a certain way. It’s easier for Ronon to see after Zelenka answers his questions. McKay tends to pale and get sweaty before he gets anxious and irritable. Giving him extra protein bars help. Still, Ronon isn’t sure that McKay will want to take the time to teach him a useful skill since Ronon knows nothing about it.

“He taught me,” Teyla reassures.

He approaches McKay at the next meal and explains that he wants to learn knitting and Teyla said he’d help.

“She did, did she?” 

“Yes,” Ronon answers. 

McKay considers this. “And you really want to learn?”

“Be useful, to be able to make your own clothes.” He’s seen some of them make whole sweaters. 

“Your people didn’t have something like knitting?” McKay prods.

“If we did I didn’t know about it, we had something similar with a small hooking device.”

McKay asks a few more questions, chastises himself that he’s doing anthropology work, then tells him that his people seemed to be more into crocheting. “Do you know how to do that?”

“A long time ago, when I was a boy. I don’t think I could remember.”

“Brio crochets. She might be able to teach you or at least know who else can. If you want to relearn.”

For a brief moment Ronon thinks that McKay is turning him down gently, but then he agrees, before he goes back to the notes he’s got on his laptop.

Ronon is slightly concerned that McKay will forget. He does so much that sometimes things, like people’s first name, escape him. Ronon prods Teyla, who just pats his shoulder fondly, then dumps him onto the mat.

McKay doesn’t forget. There’s no movie at their next team night. He’s gotten knitting supplies for Ronon and Teyla already has her own. McKay even brings knitting needles for John.

“I’m not going to be any good at this,” John complains.

Ronon feels warm at the thought that John is playing up not knowing anything about knitting instead of complaining that they aren’t watching the movie he’d already picked out.

“It’s just math John, you’re good at math,” Rodney reassures, before he starts explaining supplies and then teaches them how to cast on. Teyla inspects John’s work while Rodney nods at Ronon’s.

“Thumbs up sign, really?” John teases.

Teyla laugh is light and Rodney teases back. Ronon feels himself relax. This isn’t Sateda, but slowly it’s becoming home.


End file.
